Starry Night

[gazzamataz]

Hashers

 

Just finished remodeling Witchy Peg's Tower so I can put her in it to do her star gazing. So I thought I'd share the image with you - god it's good to get back into doing something again - too long a break.

 

Anyway, I am doing this cos I want to animate a scene from one of my stories that I have been itching to do for ages. Enjoy!

[johnl3d]

It appears she is observing her neighbor.....give the candle flame some glow..

 

nice reflection in the glass

[Eric2575]

The floor is buggin me. Not sure why.

[gazzamataz]

johnl3d

It appears she is observing her neighbor.....give the candle flame some glow..

 

Yup, I see what you mean I need to elevate the telescope so that she is looking at the stars not the witch over the road, and that is a good point about glow on the candle - never thought of that.

 

Eric2575

The floor is buggin me. Not sure why.

The floor is not finished - it's crap, I want to get a good wooden beam floor texture and plonk it on.

 

I was trying to achieve a shaft of light coming through the window to give it a bit more atomosphere, but ran out of time - not too good with lighting. Might need some pictures on the walls too.

 

I was tempted to try a radiosity render with the new version 12, but I haven't got a clue how to do that - guess I'll have to learn

 

Thanks for the comments guys!

[Paul Forwood]

Very nice, Gary.

 

I like the palette and the room model.

 

The lighting needs sorting. The space under the table is too bright. I think that the bulb light that you have used in the lantern is penetrating the table or is under it.

 

Be careful not to align elements in the composition. At the moment a leg from the tripod creates a line which continues into the line created by the left side of the window.

 

Please show us an update when you've got time. Well done.

[MattWBradbury]

I was about to say that radiosity can make that shot look way better. Even with the crappy floor. The radiosity forum has everything you'll need to know about photon mapping, so I suggest heading over there. If you do use radiosity, make sure to lower the intensity on those lights, and make sure to have ray trace shadows with 2 ray cats and 100% darkness.

 

Yves had a tutorial on how to make wood planks from a material and just using beveled cubes that are streched out. Looks quite real.

 

I actually thought she was spying on someone too. Make sure to move the telescope closer, and arch it upwards.

 

For the lantern on the table, I suggest taking out the glass for radiosity renders. Translucency with radiosity is really slow. Turn the ambience value on the famle up as well.

[Eric2575]

Tha walls are also way too smooth, they need some cracks or stonework or something to make them look like they belong on the inside of a old musty tower.

[gazzamataz]

 

Oooww, all these tips! Now I am itching to do my second ever radiosity render - the first one I tried was with V8 and I stopped it rendering half way through...

 

For the lamp to not shine through the table I guess I have to make the candle light in it volumetric n'est pas? I'll try and do an update tommorrow...

[Paul Forwood]

For the lantern just try adjusting the position of the light first. Adjust the falloff too. You could replace the bulb with two kliegs, back to back, with 180 degree cone angles. I'm no lighting wizard, so you would be better waiting for someone who is to chime in here, but a bit of experimenting will render rewards.

[gazzamataz]

Well chaps, I have been spending a few hours tweeking things and I quite like the look I have now. I did look at using radiosity but since I want to animate the scene I don't want to spend days watching it render. I only want a cartoony look anyway.

 

I have changed Peg's feet and the lights, adding some volumetric to the lantern. I tried to get it to glow but it didn't seem to work and I still haven't cracked the light shining through the table. I thought making the light volumetric would solve that but obviously not...

 

Anyway what do ya fink?

[Stuart Rogers]

Anyway what do ya fink?

I fink you should play with the shadows a bit - Peg's hair is fairly dark where it's in shade, and yet the environment is bright enough to wash out her shadow on the floor. Enhancing the shadows will give more clues about the scale of the room, and pin down Peg's location in it.

 

As for the lantern illuminating the floor below the table... Is your light size (its diameter, not the fall-off) small enough not to penetrate the table? Check both the light itself (in the Objects folder) and the shortcut in the choreography. The height of the light above the table should be less than half the size of the light.

 

And the non-glowing flame... You do realise that the amount of glow is dictated by the object's ambience setting...? I have found in some circumstances the glow isn't as strong as I would expect. Not a problem with A:M but with my expectations (e.g. glow shows up a lot more against a dark background).

[Zaryin]

I like it, but I think you should warm up the color of the floor boards -- or dull up the color of the walls.

[gazzamataz]

Hows this look? Still cannot get the lamp quite right and I have tried...

[oakchas]

overall, I like it.

 

But that is one bright candle! I dunno how to fix it.

[Stuart Rogers]

Hows this look?

Better. Maybe a little softening would look even better. It's odd how the shadow on the wall is so much better defined than the shadow on the floor.

 

At the risk of being really annoying... The telescope's shadow makes me think it's a machine gun. I'll get my coat...

[gazzamataz]

Right, since I am reasonably happy with the telescope room (I will try and soften the machine gun shadows Stuart ) I have been working on the Broom Room, which is down below the telescope room...

 

I know the brass pole ain't right but I am more concerned with those anomalies appearing like black dots at the base of the pole...

[Zaryin]

Except for the poel (which you mentioned), it looks fantastic! I love the lighting, textures, perspective, etc... Great job on this room.

[Eric2575]

Beautiful scene.

 

Could the anomalies be caused by the pole model? Have you tried to render just the pole with the same lighting setup? I don't know much about rendering, so sorry if I'm way out of line.

[NancyGormezano]

Nice!

 

Also love the Toliet plunger? Touring Machine...hee hee...maybe it will be a broom with hair? I like toliet plunger better - at first I thought it was a piece of exercise equipment.

 

Is this to be an animation? If not, the machine needs to be offset some so as to not be in line with the pole - it's a bit confusing the way it is.

 

As for the other scene - (telescope) - very nice as well. But as a bit of no-good-who-cares-info, it would be unlikely that a true astronomer would have any light source in the room when star gazing. Well, no, come to think of it ...one might have a red light. And, anyway witches probably have different rods & cones than us silly mortals.

[gazzamataz]

Well thanks for the comments guys & girls - much appreciated!

 

As for those anomalies on the pole they also exist on Witchy Peg's broom or should I say excercise-plunger bike-with hair??? (Where does the hair come from Nancy? Have a look at this Rocket Broomstick I must get one myself ) They are something to do with the volumetric lights and the specular highlights (I think/hope) and require a bit more work.

 

I will be using both these scenes for my next animation so I have had to light them to let people see what is going on in them. As for Withcy Peg's eyesight… well she is slightly boss-eyed so lord knows what she see's through that telescope

[Paul Forwood]

This is all looking very promising, Gary. Very moody locations.

I am pretty sure that the artifacts are a result of the volumetric lighting. I get them too, as you can see in the attached images. It is possible to tweak your lighting until they finally vanish but it is unfortunately a compromise. I haven't found a way to avoid them yet but I haven't spent enough time with volumetrics to know what the magic formulas are.

 

Good luck with this new project. It looks like you are pushing your work up to a new level.

[NancyGormezano]

Where does the hair come from Nancy?

 

I thought if it was a broomstick that you might be intending eventually to use "hair" for the straw. Silly me.

 

Obviously after seeing the movie, I now know that straw would be a definite fire hazard in the operation of the Rocket Boosted Toliet-Plunger-Personal-Witch-Transporter & Exercise Machine Device.

 

I haven't been keeping up with modern day Witch technology, since the late 60's (1860's that is) when I was voted out of the local covent for reasons best left untold.

 

Rock it on.

[zandoriastudios]

It seems to me that the candle flame should be the brightest thing in the scene, since it is the source of the illumination...Is that a modeled flame? If so, maybe turn its ambience to 100% and give it some glow.

I would also turn the light falloff down and be sure the light is colored to give a yellow/orange light. That would give nice complementary color too, between the blue sky and more orange illumination in the room.

[Stuart Rogers]

I have been working on the Broom Room, which is down below the telescope room...

I like the lighting, although I'm pretty sure the shadows of candle the flames wouldn't look quite like that.

 

The walls and floors look very flat, so a bump (or normal) map to accentuate the stones would help. I would also consider slightly distorting the walls (and to a lesser extent the foor) so that they aren't completely flat. With the exception of very expensive buildings (Egyptian pyramids, palaces, etc), stone walls tend to be built cheaply, and so rigid alignment falls by the wayside. (Maybe the telescope room would gain from this too?)

 

The door handle looks a bit grand for a rough, stone built room. Maybe I'm not understanding what look you're going for, but I would make it look like worn, blackened iron - along with a couple of matching sturdy hinges.

[MattWBradbury]

Have you guys tried using multipass and more than 1 ray casts for each light? That might fix the problems. Not saying that it will, but it sure does clean up a bunch of my renders.

[gazzamataz]

Well thanks for all the tips guys and girls, I couldn't quite get the glow to work. It seemed that when I applied it and rendered the idividual model it would glow, but once in the choreography it didn't want to play...

 

Anyway I wanted to do a bit more over the Christmas Holidays but got a stinking cold as a Christmas present and didn't get much done. But I did manage to get this very rough render done.

 

Night Flight

 

Good start?

[Paul Forwood]

Hi, Gazz.

 

The link is taking me to your website but clicking on the 'Broom Launch' image is not launching the movie. Right clicking reveals that it is pointing to another web page, "bb_flicks.htm", but the link does not work for me.

 

Sorry to hear you were feeling rough over Christmas.

[gazzamataz]

Paul

 

Have you got Pop-up Blocker switched on? The movie should pop-up in a separate little window (makes it neat) and should automatically play. Try turning it off if not I will sort out something else...

 

Errr, try this

 

Night Flight

 

BTW m8 did you get my recent e-mail to you? I also sent one to John Keats but didn't hear from him either. And, yeah this cold is a real bummer

[Paul Forwood]

Sorry, Gary! I meant to get around to emailing you before Christmas engulfed us.

 

I like that 'Night Flight' shot very much. The stars, of course shouldn't scroll like that but it may be your intention to keep that. It does give it a strange, magical quality having stars appear to be suspended just a few feet off the ground. You could use a still image, or image sequence, for your starfield, which you could also generate in A:M.

 

The stones seem to have too much specular highlight. Almost like melting snow and ice.

 

I really like your set! Maybe some subtle background details?

 

Nice work.

[phnxpyre]

That night flight clip is awesome!

 

one suggestion though: This depends on what type of music you have with that clip.....if it is more flowy type music, the camera shot should be more smooth/ without those breaks.

But if the music is a little bit more choppy, i think the camera shot you have is perfect.

 

i guess it depends on what type of music you use.

(hope that made sense)

 

Good work! its cool to see your progress.